You do not need to believe in gay rights to know that hatred is wrong. And you do not need to be dressed in purple today to know that when religion causes hatred that leads to bullying or ostracism that causes kids to takes their own lives, there is nothing about it that can remotely be called holy or righteous. This is something everyone should agree with, yet we all know that not everyone does. I rarely take sides on a partisan issue either in the classroom or in this blog, but I am making an exception today. We have had three suicides this year here, and that is three too many. They may not have been fostered by hatred, but they certainly have been the result of internal pressures that built up beyond tolerance. Perhaps we could have done little to prevent them. But violence against GLBT people is something we can prevent. The pressures that lead to their suicides is something we can prevent. The fomenting and tolerance of hatred against them is something we can prevent.
And we must.
In the hallways I see many students--not the hundreds I would hope for, but at least a hundred or perhaps a bit more--wearing purple, the color selected to show support for this cause. Pretty much the entire English Department, to which I belong, is doing so. Of course we are: we're the touchy-feely department, after all. I know of dozens of students and several teachers who have opted to show solidarity by, like me, vowing not to speak all day. (I passed a gaggle of such kids between periods earlier, an odd meeting in which six students and a teacher crossed paths and not a sound issued from anyone, not even when one student's backpack accidentally bumped me. She turned and flashed an "I'm sorry" look, which I acknowledged. It was all that was needed.)
I want to reach out and tell all of the GLBT kids here not just that it gets better--I've done that, and of course it will: they will not be trapped in the socially incestuous four year nightmare that is high school forever--but that they shouldn't need it to. I want them to know that they should understand how amazingly special they are, that they have been given a gift none of their classmates have been given. If there is pain along with it, it is the pain of misunderstanding, of not seeing the gift for what it is. For they end up possessing knowledge that most of their peers will achieve minimally, if at all. Who among the GLBT community does not understand the nature of hatred and the importance of love? Who among the GLBT community cannot tell you of their deep understanding of their own nature, the end result of the struggle they faced to discover it? Who among the GLBT community--those who have accepted themselves--cannot talk of the unequaled joy of living a life that is true? Who among the GLBT community cannot appreciate the real value of a true friend?
Is it hard? Of course it's hard? What worthwhile thing is not hard? But those who don't have to struggle for this kind of knowledge probably never actually come into it. Not in this way, at least. Not in a way that is so--and here is something that those who hate in the name of religion might find ironic, or even sacrilegious--holy. It is pure and honest and genuine. And those who hate possess none of those qualities, and they never will.
Film: We have one more day (Monday) in the lab. Projects are due Thursday.
E2CP: Today we took a test. (Make it up in the Testing Ctr. Monday if you were absent.) Monday we will be in a lab.
E3H: Today we took a test. (Make it up in the Testing Ctr. Monday if you were absent.) Don't forget Monday to wear your Shakespeare T-Shirts from 7:50-3:10 as your outermost garment. I do spot-check all day long! You will bring your short written explanation to class, where you will present your t-shirt to your classmates and explain it off the cuff, not just reading the essay. (It would be rather good, in order to do this, for you to have at the very least memorized the quotation.) And bring some goodies! It's a birthday, after all!
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